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Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales

January 13, 2023

Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British[3] Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit wiki hosting service Fandom (formerly Wikia). He has worked on other online projects, including Bomis, Nupedia, WikiTribune, and WT Social.

Jimmy Wales
Wales in August 2019
Born
Jimmy Donal Wales

(1966-08-07) August 7, 1966 (age 56)
Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
Other namesJimbo (screen name)[1]
Education
OccupationsInternet entrepreneur, webmaster, financial trader (formerly)
Title
SuccessorFlorence Devouard (as Chair of Wikimedia Foundation)
Board member of
Spouse(s)
Pamela Green
​
​
(m. 1986; div. 1993)​

Christine Rohan
​
​
(m. 1997; div. 2011)​

​
(m. 2012)​
Children3 daughters
AwardsSee below
Jimmy Wales' voice
Recorded August 2014
Websitejimmywales.com
Signature

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, where he attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in finance from Auburn University and the University of Alabama respectively. In graduate school, Wales taught at two universities; however, he departed before completing a PhD to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of Chicago Options Associates.

In 1996, Wales and two partners founded Bomis, a web portal primarily known for featuring adult content. Bomis provided the initial funding for the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003). On January 15, 2001, with Larry Sanger and others, Wales launched Wikipedia, a free open-content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity. As its public profile grew, Wales became its promoter and spokesman. Though he is historically credited as co-founder, he has disputed this, declaring himself the sole founder.

Wales serves on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the charity that he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed "community founder" seat. For his role in creating Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia, Time named him one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2006.

Early life and education

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, shortly before midnight on August 7, 1966; however, his birth certificate lists his date of birth as August 8.[4][better source needed][5] His father, Jimmy Sr.,[6] was a grocery store manager, while his mother, Doris Ann (née Dudley), and his grandmother, Erma, ran the House of Learning,[7][8] a small private school in the tradition of the one-room schoolhouse, where Wales and his three siblings received their early education.[7][9]

As a child, Wales enjoyed reading.[10] When he was three, his mother bought a World Book Encyclopedia from a door-to-door salesman. As he grew up and learned to read, it became an object of reverence, but Wales soon discovered that the World Book had shortcomings: No matter how much was in it, there were many more things that were not. World Book sent out stickers for owners to paste on the pages in order to update the encyclopedia, and Wales was careful to put the stickers to work, stating, "I joke that I started as a kid revising the encyclopedia by stickering the one my mother bought."[11]

During an interview in 2005 with Brian Lamb, Wales described his childhood private school as a "Montessori-influenced philosophy of education", where he "spent lots of hours poring over the Britannicas and World Book Encyclopedias".[12] There were only four other children in Wales's grade, so the school combined the first- through fourth-grade students, and the fifth- through eighth-grade students. As an adult, Wales was sharply critical of the government's treatment of the school, citing the "constant interference and bureaucracy and very sort of snobby inspectors from the state" as a formative influence on his political philosophy.[12]

After eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School,[13][14][15][16] a university-preparatory school in Huntsville, graduating at sixteen.[17] He said that the school was expensive for his family, but that "education was always a passion in my household ... you know, the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life."[12] He received his bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University in 1986.[8] He began his Auburn education when he was 16 years old.[8] He then entered the PhD finance program at the University of Alabama before leaving with a master's degree to enter the PhD finance program at Indiana University.[9][12][17] At the University of Alabama, he played Internet fantasy games and developed his interest in the web.[8] He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies but did not write the doctoral dissertation required for a PhD, something he ascribed to boredom.[9][12]

Career

Chicago Options Associates and Bomis

 
The staff of Wales' Internet company Bomis photographed in summer 2000. Wales is third from the left in the back row, with Christine Rohan.

In 1994, Wales took a job with Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm in Chicago, Illinois.[12][18][19] Wales has described himself as having been addicted to the Internet from an early stage, writing computer code during his leisure time. During his studies in Alabama, he had become an obsessive player of Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)—a type of virtual role-playing game—and thereby experienced the potential of computer networks to foster large-scale collaborative projects.[17][20]

Inspired by the remarkably successful initial public offering of Netscape in 1995, and having accumulated capital through "speculating on interest-rate and foreign-currency fluctuations",[7] Wales decided to leave the realm of financial trading and became an Internet entrepreneur.[17] In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis,[7][21] a web portal featuring user-generated webrings and, for a time, erotic photographs.[22] Wales described it as a "guy-oriented search engine" with a market similar to that of Maxim magazine;[9][12][23] the Bomis venture did not ultimately turn out to be successful.[7][9][24]

Nupedia and the origins of Wikipedia

Main article: Nupedia
 
Nupedia's logo

Though Bomis had at the time struggled to make money, it provided Wales with the funding to pursue his greater passion, an online encyclopedia.[9] While moderating an online discussion group devoted to the philosophy of Objectivism in the early 1990s, Wales had encountered Larry Sanger, a skeptic of the philosophy.[10] The two had engaged in detailed debate on the subject on Wales' list and then on Sanger's, eventually meeting offline to continue the debate and becoming friends.[10] Years later, after deciding to pursue his encyclopedia project and seeking a credentialed academic to lead it,[20] Wales hired Sanger—who at that time was a doctoral student in philosophy at Ohio State University—to be its editor-in-chief, and in March 2000, Nupedia ("the free encyclopedia"), a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, was launched.[9][12] The intent behind Nupedia was to have expert-written entries on a variety of topics, and to sell advertising alongside the entries in order to make profit.[10] The project was characterized by an extensive peer-review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias.[25]

The idea was to have thousands of volunteers writing articles for an online encyclopedia in all languages. Initially we found ourselves organizing the work in a very top-down, structured, academic, old-fashioned way. It was no fun for the volunteer writers because we had a lot of academic peer review committees who would criticize articles and give feedback. It was like handing in an essay at grad school, and basically intimidating to participate in.

— Jimmy Wales on the Nupedia project New Scientist, January 31, 2007[26]

In an October 2009 speech, Wales recollected attempting to write a Nupedia article on Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert C. Merton, but being too intimidated to submit his first draft to the prestigious finance professors who were to peer review it, even though he had published a paper on Option Pricing Theory and was comfortable with the subject matter. Wales characterized this as the moment he realized that the Nupedia model was not going to work.[27]

In January 2001, Sanger was introduced to the concept of a wiki by extreme programming enthusiast Ben Kovitz after explaining to Kovitz the slow pace of growth Nupedia endured as a result of its onerous submission process.[28] Kovitz suggested that adopting the wiki model would allow editors to contribute simultaneously and incrementally throughout the project, thus breaking Nupedia's bottleneck.[28] Sanger was excited about the idea, and after he proposed it to Wales, they created the first Nupedia wiki on January 10, 2001.[28] The wiki was initially intended as a collaborative project for the public to write articles that would then be reviewed for publication by Nupedia's expert volunteers. The majority of Nupedia's experts, however, wanted nothing to do with this project, fearing that mixing amateur content with professionally researched and edited material would compromise the integrity of Nupedia's information and damage the credibility of the encyclopedia.[29] Thus, the wiki project, dubbed "Wikipedia" by Sanger,[30] went live at a separate domain five days after its creation.[19][24]

Wikipedia

Main article: History of Wikipedia
External video
 
  Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia, TED, 2005[31]
  Q&A with Jimmy Wales, C-SPAN, 2005[12]
  Lecture Jimmy Wales: Understanding failure as a route to success, Maastricht University, 2015[32]

Originally, Bomis planned to make Wikipedia a profitable business.[33] Sanger initially saw Wikipedia primarily as a tool to aid Nupedia development. Wales feared that, at worst, it might produce "complete rubbish".[19] To the surprise of Sanger and Wales, within a few days of launching, the number of articles on Wikipedia had outgrown that of Nupedia, and a small collective of editors had formed.[18][20] It was Jimmy Wales, along with other people, who came up with the broader idea of an open-source, collaborative encyclopedia that would accept contributions from ordinary people.[34] Initially, neither Sanger nor Wales knew what to expect from the Wikipedia initiative.[19][20] Many of the early contributors to the site were familiar with the model of the free culture movement, and, like Wales, many of them sympathized with the open-source movement.[29]

Wales has said that he was initially so worried about the concept of open editing, where anyone can edit the encyclopedia, that he would awaken during the night and monitor what was being added.[35][36] Nonetheless, the cadre of early editors helped create a robust, self-regulating community that has proven conducive to the growth of the project.[9] In a talk at SXSW in 2016, he recalled that he wrote the first words on Wikipedia: "Hello world", a phrase computer programmers often use to test new software.[37]

Sanger developed Wikipedia in its early phase and guided the project.[30][38] The broader idea he originally ascribes to other people, remarking in a 2005 memoir for Slashdot that "the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine, and the funding was entirely by Bomis. Of course, other people had had the idea", adding, "the actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on."[39] Sanger worked on and promoted both the Nupedia and Wikipedia projects until Bomis discontinued funding for his position in February 2002;[40] Sanger resigned as editor-in-chief of Nupedia and as "chief organizer" of Wikipedia on March 1 of that year.[41][42] Early on, Bomis supplied the financial backing for Wikipedia,[38][43] and entertained the notion of placing advertisements on Wikipedia before costs were reduced with Sanger's departure and plans for a non-profit foundation were advanced instead.[33]

Controversy regarding Wales's status as co-founder

Further information: History of Wikipedia § Early roles of Wales and Sanger
 
Wales with journalist Irina Slutsky at SXSW 2006, taken from her program Geek Entertainment TV[44]

Wales has said that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia,[45] and has publicly disputed Sanger's designation as a co-founder. Sanger and Wales were identified as co-founders at least as early as September 2001 by The New York Times and as founders in Wikipedia's first press release in January 2002.[46][47] In August of that year, Wales identified himself as "co-founder" of Wikipedia.[48] Sanger assembled on his personal webpage an assortment of links that appear to confirm the status of Sanger and Wales as co-founders.[30][49] For example, Sanger and Wales are historically cited or described in early news citations and press releases as co-founders.[30] Wales was quoted by The Boston Globe as calling Sanger's statement "preposterous" in February 2006,[50] and called "the whole debate" "silly" in an April 2009 interview.[51] In 2013, Wales told The New York Times that the dispute is "the dumbest controversy in the history of the world".[52]

In late 2005, Wales edited his own biographical entry on the English Wikipedia. Writer Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that in his edits to the page, Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia.[53][54] Sanger commented that "having seen edits like this, it does seem that Jimmy is attempting to rewrite history. But this is a futile process because in our brave new world of transparent activity and maximum communication, the truth will out."[23][55] Wales was also observed to have modified references to Bomis in a way that was characterized as downplaying the sexual nature of some of his former company's products.[19][23] Though Wales argued that his modifications were solely intended to improve the accuracy of the content,[23] he apologized for editing his own biography, a practice generally discouraged on Wikipedia.[23][55]

Role

In a 2004 interview with Slashdot, Wales outlined his vision for Wikipedia: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."[56] Although his formal designation is board member and chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wales's social capital within the Wikipedia community has accorded him a status that has been characterized as benevolent dictator, constitutional monarch and spiritual leader.[57][58][59] In two interviews with The Guardian in 2014, Wales elaborated on his role on Wikipedia. In the first interview, he said that while he "has always rejected" the term "benevolent dictator", he does refer to himself as the "constitutional monarch". In the second, he elaborated on his "constitutional monarch" designation, saying that, like Queen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II, he has no real power.[1][60] He was also the closest the project had to a spokesperson in its early years.[10] The growth and prominence of Wikipedia made Wales an Internet celebrity.[61] Although he had never traveled outside North America prior to the site's founding, his participation in the Wikipedia project has seen him flying internationally on a near-constant basis as its public face.[10][62]

When Larry Sanger left Wikipedia, Wales's approach was different from Sanger's.[63] Wales was fairly hands-off.[63] Despite involvement in other projects, Wales has denied intending to reduce his role within Wikipedia, telling The New York Times in 2008 that "Dialing down is not an option for me ... Not to be too dramatic about it, but, 'to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language,' that's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal."[58] In May 2010, the BBC reported that Wales had relinquished many of his technical privileges on Wikimedia Commons (a Wikipedia sister project that hosts much of its multimedia content) after criticism by the project's volunteer community over what they saw as Wales's hasty and undemocratic approach to deleting sexually explicit images he believed "appeal solely to prurient interests".[64]

Wikimedia Foundation

 
Wales appearing as a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees at Wikimania 2007

In mid-2003, Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), a non-profit organization founded in St. Petersburg, Florida and later headquartered in San Francisco, California.[65][66] All intellectual property rights and domain names pertaining to Wikipedia were moved to the new foundation,[67] whose purpose is to support the encyclopedia and its sister projects.[20] Wales has been a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees since it was formed and was its official chairman from 2003 through 2006.[68] Since 2006 he has been accorded the honorary title of chairman emeritus and holds the board-appointed "community founder's seat" that was installed in 2008.[69][70][71] His work for the foundation, including his appearances to promote it at computer and educational conferences, has always been unpaid.[22] Wales has often joked that donating Wikipedia to the foundation was both the "dumbest and the smartest" thing he had done. On one hand, he estimated that Wikipedia was worth US$3 billion; on the other, he weighed his belief that the donation made its success possible.[26][67][72][73] In 2020, Wales said that "I view my role as being very much like the modern monarch of the UK: no real power, but the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn."[74]

Wales gives an annual "State of the Wiki" address at the Wikimania conference.[75]

Wales's association with the foundation has led to controversy. In March 2008, Wales was accused by former Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool of misusing the foundation's funds for recreational purposes.[76] Wool also stated that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits, a statement Wales denied.[76] Then-chairperson of the foundation Florence Devouard and former foundation interim Executive Director Brad Patrick denied any wrongdoing by Wales or the foundation, saying that Wales accounted for every expense and that, for items for which he lacked receipts, he paid out of his own pocket; in private, Devouard upbraided Wales for "constantly trying to rewrite the past".[77]

Later in March 2008, former Novell computer scientist Jeff Merkey said that Wales had edited Merkey's Wikipedia entry to make it more favorable in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation, an allegation Wales dismissed as "nonsense".[78][79] In early 2016, Wikipedia editors perceived the WMF's Knowledge Engine project as a conflict of interest for Wales, whose business Wikia might benefit from having the WMF spend a lot of money on research in respect to search.[80] Wikia attempted to develop a search engine but it was closed in 2009.[80]

Wikia and later pursuits

In 2004, Wales and then-fellow member of the WMF Board of Trustees Angela Beesley founded the for-profit company Wikia.[18] Wikia is a wiki farm—a collection of individual wikis on different subjects, all hosted on the same website. It hosts some of the largest wikis outside Wikipedia, including Memory Alpha (devoted to Star Trek) and Wookieepedia (Star Wars).[81] Another service offered by Wikia was Wikia Search, an open source search engine intended to challenge Google and introduce transparency and public dialogue about how it is created into the search engine's operations,[82] but the project was abandoned in March 2009.[83] Wales stepped down as Wikia CEO to be replaced by angel investor Gil Penchina, a former vice president and general manager at eBay, on June 5, 2006.[84] Penchina declared Wikia to have reached profitability in September 2009.[85] In addition to his role at Wikia, Wales is a public speaker represented by the Harry Walker Agency.[86][87] He has also participated in a celebrity endorsement campaign for the Swiss watchmaker Maurice Lacroix.[88]

On November 4, 2011, Wales delivered an hour-long address at The Sage Gateshead in the United Kingdom to launch the 2011 Free Thinking Festival on BBC Radio Three.[89] His speech, which was entitled "The Future of the Internet", was largely devoted to Wikipedia. Twenty days later, on November 24, Wales appeared on the British topical debate television program Question Time.[90]

In May 2012, it was reported that Wales was advising the UK government on how to make taxpayer-funded academic research available on the internet at no cost.[91] His role reportedly involved working as "an unpaid advisor on crowdsourcing and opening up policymaking", and advising the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the UK research councils on distributing research.[91]

In January 2014, it was announced that Wales had joined The People's Operator as co-chair of the mobile phone network.[92]

On March 21, 2014, Wales spoke on a panel at a Clinton Global Initiative University conference held at Arizona State University, along with John McCain, Saudi Arabian women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif and Harvard University student Shree Bose.[93] The topic of discussion was "the age of participation" and the ability of an increasingly large number of citizens to "express their own opinions, pursue their own educations, and launch their own enterprises." Wales exhorted young people to use social media to try to bring about societal change, and compared government suppression of the Internet to a human rights violation.[94]

On May 26, 2014, Google appointed Wales to serve on a seven-member committee on privacy in response to Google v. Gonzalez, which led to Google's being inundated with requests to remove websites from their search results. Wales said he wanted the committee to be viewed as "a blue-ribbon panel" by lawmakers and for the committee to advise the lawmakers as well as Google.[95]

In 2017, Wales announced that he was launching an online publication called WikiTribune, with a goal to fight fake news through a combination of professional journalists and volunteer contributors. Wales described it as "news by the people and for the people", and that it will be the "first time that professional journalists and citizen journalists will work side-by-side as equals writing stories as they happen, editing them live as they develop, and at all times backed by a community checking and rechecking all facts".[96]

In October 2019, Wales launched an ad-free social network, WT Social.[97][98]

The Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression is a UK-based charity established by Wales to fight against human rights violations in the field of freedom of expression.[99][100][101] Wales founded the charity after receiving a prize from the leader of Dubai, which he felt he could not accept given the strict censorship laws there, but claims he was not allowed to give back.[100] As of 2016, the charity's CEO is Orit Kopel.[102]

Political and economic views

Personal philosophy

 
Wales at a Creative Commons board meeting in June 2008

Wales has previously referred to himself as an Objectivist,[82] referring to the philosophy of writer Ayn Rand in the mid-20th century that emphasizes reason, individualism, and capitalism. Wales first encountered the philosophy through reading Rand's novel The Fountainhead during his undergraduate period[12] and, in 1992, founded an electronic mailing list devoted to "Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy".[10][103] Though he has stated that the philosophy "colours everything I do and think",[10] he has said, "I think I do a better job—than a lot of people who self-identify as Objectivists—of not pushing my point of view on other people."[104]

 
Jimmy Wales 2014 on CeBIT Global Conferences, Wikipedia Zero

When asked by Brian Lamb about Rand's influence on him in his appearance on C-SPAN's Q&A in September 2005, Wales cited integrity and "the virtue of independence" as personally important. When asked if he could trace "the Ayn Rand connection" to a personal political philosophy at the time of the interview, Wales labeled himself a libertarian, qualifying his remark by referring to the Libertarian Party as "lunatics", and citing "freedom, liberty, basically individual rights, that idea of dealing with other people in a manner that is not initiating force against them" as his guiding principles.[12]

An interview with Wales served as the cover feature of the June 2007 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason.[9] In that profile, he described his political views as "center-right".[9] In a 2011 interview with The Independent, he expressed sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London protesters, saying, "You don't have to be a socialist to say it's not right to take money from everybody and give it to a few rich people. That's not free enterprise."[105] Dan Hodges in The Telegraph has described Wales as a "Labour sympathizer".[106] In 2015, he offered to help Ed Miliband with the Labour Party's social media strategy, but Miliband turned him down.[106] In 2015, Wales signed up as the committee chair for Democrat Lawrence Lessig's 2016 presidential campaign.[107] In 2016, Wales and eleven other business leaders signed on to an open letter to American voters urging them not to vote for Donald Trump in that year's presidential election.[108] In May 2017, Wales said on Quora that he is a centrist and a gradualist, and believes "that slow step-by-step change is better and more sustainable and allows us to test new things with a minimum of difficult disruption in society."[109] In May 2022, Wales said that he did not identify with any particular political label.[110]

Philosophy in practice

The January/February 2006 issue of Maximum PC reported that Wales refused to comply with a request from the People's Republic of China to censor "politically sensitive" Wikipedia articles—other corporate Internet companies, such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, had already yielded to Chinese government pressure. Wales stated that he would rather see companies such as Google adhere to Wikipedia's policy of freedom of information.[111] In 2010, Wales criticized whistle-blower website WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange, saying that their publication of Afghan war documents "could be enough to get someone killed"; furthermore, he expressed irritation at their use of the name "wiki":[112] "What they're doing is not really a wiki. The essence of wiki is a collaborative editing process".[113]

Development and management of Wikipedia

 
Wales at the tenth anniversary celebration of the Bengali Wikipedia

Wales cites Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek's essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society", which he read as an undergraduate,[19] as "central" to his thinking about "how to manage the Wikipedia project".[9] Hayek argued that information is decentralized—that each individual only knows a small fraction of what is known collectively—and that as a result, decisions are best made by those with local knowledge, rather than by a central authority.[9] Wales reconsidered Hayek's essay in the 1990s, while reading about the open source movement, which advocated for the collective development and free distribution of software. He was particularly moved by "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", an essay which was later adapted into a book of the same name, by one of the founders of the movement, Eric S. Raymond, as it "opened [his] eyes to the possibilities of mass collaboration."[19]

From his background in finance, and working as a futures and options trader, Wales developed an interest in game theory and the effect of incentives on human collaborative activity. He identifies this fascination as a significant basis for his developmental work on the Wikipedia project.[114] He has rejected the notion that his role in promoting Wikipedia is altruistic, which he defines as "sacrificing your own values for others", and he states that the idea that "participating in a benevolent effort to share information is somehow destroying your own values makes no sense to me".[62]

Testimony before Senate Homeland Security Committee

On December 11, 2007, Wales testified before to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[115][116] He also submitted written testimony to the Senate Committee entitled "E-Government 2.0: Improving Innovation, Collaboration and Access".[117]

Senator Joseph Lieberman introduced Wales by stating:

We are very glad to have as a witness Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, one of the most thrilling examples of what collaborative technology can produce. We have asked Mr. Wales to take us through some of the ideas behind Wikipedia and then to relate them to our jurisdiction, which is to say to help us understand how similar technologies and collaborative activities can be applied to government for greater information sharing and communication, both within the government, but also between the government and the public. In fact, quite encouragingly, the intelligence community has already developed and is using a process collaborative technology that they call Intellipedia, which is based directly on the Wikipedia model. So, Mr. Wales, if imitation is a form of flattery, you should feel flattered. And the aim of this is to foster collaboration and information across the intelligence community, obviously on a closed site.[118]

European Court of Justice Google ruling

On May 14, 2014, Wales strongly reacted to the European Court of Justice (ECJ)'s ruling on the right of individuals to request the removal of information from Google's search results. He stated to the BBC that the ruling was "one of the most wide-sweeping internet censorship rulings that I've ever seen".[119] In early June 2014, the TechCrunch media outlet interviewed Wales on the subject, as he had been invited by Google to join an advisory committee that the corporation had formed as an addition to the formal process that the ECJ requested from Google to manage such requests.[120]

The May 2014 ECJ ruling required swift action from Google to implement a process that allowed people to directly contact the corporation about the removal of information that they believe is outdated or irrelevant. Google's Larry Page revealed that 30 percent of requests received by Google since the ruling was made were categorized as "other". Wales explained in email responses that he was contacted by Google on May 28, 2014, and "The remit of the committee is to hold public hearings and issue recommendations—not just to Google but to legislators and the public."[120] When asked about his view on the ECJ's "right to be forgotten" ruling, Wales replied:

I think the decision will have no impact on people's right to privacy, because I don't regard truthful information in court records published by court order in a newspaper to be private information. If anything, the decision is likely to simply muddle the interesting philosophical questions and make it more difficult to make real progress on privacy issues. In the case of truthful, non-defamatory information obtained legally, I think there is no possibility of any defensible "right" to censor what other people are saying. It is important to avoid language like "data" because we aren't talking about "data"—we are talking about the suppression of knowledge.[120]

Wales then provided further explanation, drawing a comparison with Wikipedia: "You do not have a right to use the law to prevent Wikipedia editors from writing truthful information, nor do you have a right to use the law to prevent Google from publishing truthful information." Wales concluded with an indication of his ideal outcome: "A part of the outcome should be the very strong implementation of a right to free speech in Europe—essentially the language of the First Amendment in the U.S."[120]

Other issues

 
Wales at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos

In 2012, the Home Secretary of the U.K. was petitioned by Wales in regard to his opposition to the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer to the US.[121] After an agreement was reached to avoid the extradition, Wales commented, "This is very exciting news, and I'm pleased to hear it ... What needs to happen next is a serious reconsideration of the UK extradition treaty that would allow this sort of nonsense in the first place."[122]

In August 2013, Wales criticized U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron's plan for an Internet porn-filter, saying that the idea was "ridiculous".[123] In November 2013, Wales also commented on the Snowden affair, describing Edward Snowden as "a hero" whom history would judge "very favourably"; additionally, Wales said the US public "would have never approved [the] sweeping surveillance program [publicized by Snowden]", had they been informed or asked about it.[124]

During the Gamergate controversy in 2014, in response to an email from a computer science student, Wales allegedly said of the Gamergate movement that "It is very difficult for me to buy into the notion that gamergate is 'really about ethics in journalism' when every single experience I have personally had with it involved pro-gg people insulting, threatening, doxxing, etc." and that the movement "has been permanently tarnished and highjacked by a handful of people who are not what you would hope."[125] Wales defended his comments in response to backlash from supporters of Gamergate, saying that "it isn't about what I believe. Gg is famous for harassment. Stop and think about why."[126]

In November 2019, Wales accused Twitter of giving preferential treatment to high-profile figures such as Trump and Elon Musk for not banning or blocking them for their controversial statements.[127]

In May 2020, Wales criticized Trump for threatening to regulate social media companies.[128]

In September 2021, Wales said that Facebook and Twitter should combat misinformation and abuse on their platforms by deploying volunteer moderators to monitor controversial posts.[129]

In October 2021, Wales said that "Protecting strong encryption is essential for protecting the human rights of millions of people around the world."[130]

In May 2022, in response to Elon Musk's proposed acquisition of Twitter, Wales said that "I think he's got some good and bad ideas, based on his public statements.", adding that "On the other hand, Twitter in five years' time could be much better than it is today, or Twitter could be dead in five years' time, depending on the decisions he makes."[131]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wales stated on Wikipedia that the consensus in the mainstream media surrounding the lab leak theory seemed to have shifted from "this is highly unlikely, and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative" to "this is one of the plausible hypotheses."[132]

Wales has visited Israel over ten times. He has said that he is "a strong supporter of Israel". In 2015, he was awarded one of the Dan David Prizes, an international award of $1-million given yearly at Tel Aviv University (10 percent of the prize goes to doctoral students); Wales was chosen for spearheading what the prize committee called the “information revolution.”[133]

Personal life

 
Wales with his second wife, Christine Rohan

Wales has been married three times. At the age of 20, he married Pamela Green,[134] a co-worker at a grocery store in Alabama.[62] They divorced in 1993.[8] He met his second wife, Christine Rohan, through a friend in Chicago while she worked as a steel trader for Mitsubishi.[12][17] They were married in Monroe County, Florida, in March 1997,[135] and had a daughter before separating in 2008.[134][12][62] Wales moved to San Diego in 1998, and after becoming disillusioned with the housing market there, moved in 2002 to St. Petersburg, Florida.[17][43][136]

He had a brief relationship with Canadian conservative columnist Rachel Marsden in 2008 that began after Marsden contacted Wales about her Wikipedia biography.[137] After accusations that Wales's relationship constituted a conflict of interest, he stated that there had been a relationship but that it was over and that it had not influenced any matters on Wikipedia,[138][139] a statement Marsden disputed.[140]

Wales married Kate Garvey at Wesley's Chapel in London on October 6, 2012.[141] Garvey is Tony Blair's former diary secretary; the couple met in Davos, Switzerland.[142][143] Wales has three daughters: one with Rohan and two with Garvey.[1][144]

Wales is an atheist. In an interview with Big Think, he said his personal philosophy is firmly rooted in reason, and that he is a complete non-believer.[145]

Wales has lived in London, England since 2012.[146] He became a British citizen in 2019.[3] In 2021, on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, he revealed that he secretly moved to Argentina for one month after reading Ferriss's book The 4-Hour Workweek.[147]

Wales says that he is a passionate chef.[74]

Publications

  • Brooks, Robert; Corson, Jon; Wales, Jimmy Donal (1994). "The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion". Advances in Futures and Options Research. 7. SSRN 5735.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (December 31, 2008). "Foreword". In Fraser, Matthew; Dutta, Soumitra (eds.). Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World (1st ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-74014-9. OCLC 233939846.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (January 8, 2009). "Commentary: Create a tech-friendly U.S. government". CNN. from the original on August 16, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (February 10, 2009). "Foreword". In Powell, Juliette (ed.). 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking (1st ed.). Financial Times Press. ISBN 978-0-13-715435-7. OCLC 244066502.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (March 3, 2009). "Foreword". In Weber, Larry (ed.). Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business (2nd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-41097-4. OCLC 244060887.
  • Wales, Jimmy (March 17, 2009). "Foreword". In Lih, Andrew (ed.). The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia (1st ed.). Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-4013-0371-6. OCLC 232977686.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (March 30, 2009). "Most Define User-Generated Content Too Narrowly". Advertising Age. 80. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
  • Wales, Jimmy; Weckerle, Andrea (December 28, 2009). "Keep a Civil Cybertongue". The Wall Street Journal. from the original on May 19, 2017. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  • Mons, B.; Ashburner, M.; Chichester, C.; Van Mulligen, E.; Weeber, M.; Den Dunnen, J.; Van Ommen, G. J.; Musen, M.; Cockerill, M.; Hermjakob, H.; Mons, A.; Packer, A.; Pacheco, R.; Lewis, S.; Berkeley, A.; Melton, W.; Barris, N.; Wales, J.; Meijssen, G.; Moeller, E.; Roes, P.; Borner, K.; Bairoch, A. (2008). "Calling on a million minds for community annotation in WikiProteins". Genome Biology. 9 (5): R89. doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-5-r89. PMC 2441475. PMID 18507872.

Distinctions

 
Wales at the 2011 Gottlieb Duttweiler Awards Show
 
Wales receives an honorary doctorate from Maastricht University, 2015
 
Jimmy Wales accepting the Dan David Prize at the Tel Aviv University, 2015

See also

References

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  2. ^ Williams, Christopher (April 25, 2017). "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales exits Guardian board over conflict of interest with Wikitribune news site". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Jimmy Wales [@jimmy_wales] (September 16, 2019). "I just became a UK citizen, quite happy about that. It occurs to me that perhaps a few MPs should actually take the "Life in the UK" test and study the manual!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  4. ^ "Jimmy Wales". Encyclopædia Britannica. July 16, 2014. from the original on January 27, 2015. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  5. ^ Rogoway, Mike (July 27, 2007). "Wikipedia & its founder disagree on his birth date". Silicon Forest. from the original on May 22, 2011. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
  6. ^ Kazek, Kelly (August 11, 2006). "Geek to chic: Wikipedia founder a celebrity". The News Courier. Archived from the original on March 20, 2008. Doris Wales's husband, Jimmy, wasn't sure what she was thinking when she bought a World Book Encyclopedia set from a traveling salesman in 1968.
  7. ^ a b c d e Pink, Daniel H. (March 13, 2005). . Wired. Vol. 13, no. 3. Archived from the original on March 4, 2005. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
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  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mangu-Ward, Katherine (June 2007). "Wikipedia and beyond: Jimmy Wales's sprawling vision". Reason. Vol. 39, no. 2. p. 21. from the original on July 25, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
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  20. ^ a b c d e Poe (2006), p. 93: "Wales, though, was a businessman. He wanted to build a free encyclopedia, and Wikipedia offered a very rapid and economically efficient means to that end. The articles flooded in, many were good, and they cost him almost nothing. [...] In 2003, Wales [decided to] diminish his own authority by transferring Wikipedia and all of its assets to the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, whose sole purpose is to set general policy for Wikipedia and its allied projects. [...] Wales's benign rule has allowed Wikipedia to do what it does best: grow. The numbers are staggering."
  21. ^ Poe (2006), p. 88: "In 1996, Wales and two partners founded a Web directory called Bomis. [...] Wales focused on the bottom-up strategy using Web rings, and it worked. Bomis users built hundreds of rings—on cars, computers, sports, and especially 'babes' (e.g., the Anna Kournikova Web ring), effectively creating an index of the 'laddie' Web. Instead of helping all users find all content, Bomis found itself positioned as the Playboy of the Internet, helping guys find guy stuff."
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Cite error: A list-defined reference named "WMF PR 2004-04-25" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Bibliography

  • Poe, Marshall (September 2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic Monthly. 298 (2): 86–94. from the original on July 4, 2008. Retrieved February 29, 2008.

Further reading

  • "Wikimania: Meet the Wikipedians. Those "persnickety," techy types who keep your favorite Internet information website brimming with data." 60 Minutes: Morley Safer interviewing Jimmy Wales. First aired on April 5, 2015. Rebroadcast on July 26, 2015.
  • Wales, Jimmy (July 2005). "The birth of Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales recalls how he assembled "a ragtag band of volunteers," gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, never-finished online encyclopedia". TED talks.
  • On Being w/Krista Tippett; Jimmy Wales – The Sum of All Human Knowledge (broadcast WAMU American University) September 11, 2016
  • Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales is Taking on Facebook and the Dangers Lurking in the Rise of Artificial Intelligence, by Fred Guterl, Newsweek, December 12, 2019.

External links

January 13, 2023
jimmy, wales, jimmy, donal, wales, born, august, 1966, also, known, wikipedia, pseudonym, jimbo, american, british, internet, entrepreneur, webmaster, former, financial, trader, founder, online, profit, encyclopedia, wikipedia, profit, wiki, hosting, service, . Jimmy Donal Wales born August 7 1966 also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo is an American British 3 Internet entrepreneur webmaster and former financial trader He is a co founder of the online non profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for profit wiki hosting service Fandom formerly Wikia He has worked on other online projects including Bomis Nupedia WikiTribune and WT Social Jimmy WalesWales in August 2019BornJimmy Donal Wales 1966 08 07 August 7 1966 age 56 Huntsville Alabama U S Other namesJimbo screen name 1 EducationAuburn University BS University of Alabama Tuscaloosa MS Indiana University BloomingtonOccupationsInternet entrepreneur webmaster financial trader formerly TitlePresident of Fandom Inc 2004 present Chair of Wikimedia Foundation 2003 2006 Chair emeritus of Wikimedia Foundation 2006 present SuccessorFlorence Devouard as Chair of Wikimedia Foundation Board member ofWikimedia FoundationCreative CommonsSunlight Foundation advisory board until September 2020 MIT Center for Collective Intelligence advisory board Guardian Media Group until April 2017 2 Spouse s Pamela Green m 1986 div 1993 wbr Christine Rohan m 1997 div 2011 wbr Kate Garvey m 2012 wbr Children3 daughtersAwardsSee belowJimmy Wales voice source source track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track Recorded August 2014Websitejimmywales wbr comSignatureWales was born in Huntsville Alabama where he attended Randolph School a university preparatory school He earned bachelor s and master s degrees in finance from Auburn University and the University of Alabama respectively In graduate school Wales taught at two universities however he departed before completing a PhD to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of Chicago Options Associates In 1996 Wales and two partners founded Bomis a web portal primarily known for featuring adult content Bomis provided the initial funding for the free peer reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia 2000 2003 On January 15 2001 with Larry Sanger and others Wales launched Wikipedia a free open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity As its public profile grew Wales became its promoter and spokesman Though he is historically credited as co founder he has disputed this declaring himself the sole founder Wales serves on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees the charity that he helped establish to operate Wikipedia holding its board appointed community founder seat For his role in creating Wikipedia the world s largest encyclopedia Time named him one of The 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2006 Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 2 1 Chicago Options Associates and Bomis 2 2 Nupedia and the origins of Wikipedia 2 3 Wikipedia 2 3 1 Controversy regarding Wales s status as co founder 2 3 2 Role 2 4 Wikimedia Foundation 2 5 Wikia and later pursuits 3 Political and economic views 3 1 Personal philosophy 3 2 Philosophy in practice 3 3 Development and management of Wikipedia 3 4 Testimony before Senate Homeland Security Committee 3 5 European Court of Justice Google ruling 3 6 Other issues 4 Personal life 5 Publications 6 Distinctions 7 See also 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 Further reading 11 External linksEarly life and educationWales was born in Huntsville Alabama shortly before midnight on August 7 1966 however his birth certificate lists his date of birth as August 8 4 better source needed 5 His father Jimmy Sr 6 was a grocery store manager while his mother Doris Ann nee Dudley and his grandmother Erma ran the House of Learning 7 8 a small private school in the tradition of the one room schoolhouse where Wales and his three siblings received their early education 7 9 As a child Wales enjoyed reading 10 When he was three his mother bought a World Book Encyclopedia from a door to door salesman As he grew up and learned to read it became an object of reverence but Wales soon discovered that the World Book had shortcomings No matter how much was in it there were many more things that were not World Book sent out stickers for owners to paste on the pages in order to update the encyclopedia and Wales was careful to put the stickers to work stating I joke that I started as a kid revising the encyclopedia by stickering the one my mother bought 11 During an interview in 2005 with Brian Lamb Wales described his childhood private school as a Montessori influenced philosophy of education where he spent lots of hours poring over the Britannicas and World Book Encyclopedias 12 There were only four other children in Wales s grade so the school combined the first through fourth grade students and the fifth through eighth grade students As an adult Wales was sharply critical of the government s treatment of the school citing the constant interference and bureaucracy and very sort of snobby inspectors from the state as a formative influence on his political philosophy 12 After eighth grade Wales attended Randolph School 13 14 15 16 a university preparatory school in Huntsville graduating at sixteen 17 He said that the school was expensive for his family but that education was always a passion in my household you know the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life 12 He received his bachelor s degree in finance from Auburn University in 1986 8 He began his Auburn education when he was 16 years old 8 He then entered the PhD finance program at the University of Alabama before leaving with a master s degree to enter the PhD finance program at Indiana University 9 12 17 At the University of Alabama he played Internet fantasy games and developed his interest in the web 8 He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies but did not write the doctoral dissertation required for a PhD something he ascribed to boredom 9 12 CareerChicago Options Associates and Bomis The staff of Wales Internet company Bomis photographed in summer 2000 Wales is third from the left in the back row with Christine Rohan In 1994 Wales took a job with Chicago Options Associates a futures and options trading firm in Chicago Illinois 12 18 19 Wales has described himself as having been addicted to the Internet from an early stage writing computer code during his leisure time During his studies in Alabama he had become an obsessive player of Multi User Dungeons MUDs a type of virtual role playing game and thereby experienced the potential of computer networks to foster large scale collaborative projects 17 20 Inspired by the remarkably successful initial public offering of Netscape in 1995 and having accumulated capital through speculating on interest rate and foreign currency fluctuations 7 Wales decided to leave the realm of financial trading and became an Internet entrepreneur 17 In 1996 he and two partners founded Bomis 7 21 a web portal featuring user generated webrings and for a time erotic photographs 22 Wales described it as a guy oriented search engine with a market similar to that of Maxim magazine 9 12 23 the Bomis venture did not ultimately turn out to be successful 7 9 24 Nupedia and the origins of Wikipedia Main article Nupedia Nupedia s logo Though Bomis had at the time struggled to make money it provided Wales with the funding to pursue his greater passion an online encyclopedia 9 While moderating an online discussion group devoted to the philosophy of Objectivism in the early 1990s Wales had encountered Larry Sanger a skeptic of the philosophy 10 The two had engaged in detailed debate on the subject on Wales list and then on Sanger s eventually meeting offline to continue the debate and becoming friends 10 Years later after deciding to pursue his encyclopedia project and seeking a credentialed academic to lead it 20 Wales hired Sanger who at that time was a doctoral student in philosophy at Ohio State University to be its editor in chief and in March 2000 Nupedia the free encyclopedia a peer reviewed open content encyclopedia was launched 9 12 The intent behind Nupedia was to have expert written entries on a variety of topics and to sell advertising alongside the entries in order to make profit 10 The project was characterized by an extensive peer review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias 25 The idea was to have thousands of volunteers writing articles for an online encyclopedia in all languages Initially we found ourselves organizing the work in a very top down structured academic old fashioned way It was no fun for the volunteer writers because we had a lot of academic peer review committees who would criticize articles and give feedback It was like handing in an essay at grad school and basically intimidating to participate in Jimmy Wales on the Nupedia project New Scientist January 31 2007 26 In an October 2009 speech Wales recollected attempting to write a Nupedia article on Nobel Prize winning economist Robert C Merton but being too intimidated to submit his first draft to the prestigious finance professors who were to peer review it even though he had published a paper on Option Pricing Theory and was comfortable with the subject matter Wales characterized this as the moment he realized that the Nupedia model was not going to work 27 In January 2001 Sanger was introduced to the concept of a wiki by extreme programming enthusiast Ben Kovitz after explaining to Kovitz the slow pace of growth Nupedia endured as a result of its onerous submission process 28 Kovitz suggested that adopting the wiki model would allow editors to contribute simultaneously and incrementally throughout the project thus breaking Nupedia s bottleneck 28 Sanger was excited about the idea and after he proposed it to Wales they created the first Nupedia wiki on January 10 2001 28 The wiki was initially intended as a collaborative project for the public to write articles that would then be reviewed for publication by Nupedia s expert volunteers The majority of Nupedia s experts however wanted nothing to do with this project fearing that mixing amateur content with professionally researched and edited material would compromise the integrity of Nupedia s information and damage the credibility of the encyclopedia 29 Thus the wiki project dubbed Wikipedia by Sanger 30 went live at a separate domain five days after its creation 19 24 Wikipedia Main article History of Wikipedia External video Jimmy Wales The birth of Wikipedia TED 2005 31 Q amp A with Jimmy Wales C SPAN 2005 12 Lecture Jimmy Wales Understanding failure as a route to success Maastricht University 2015 32 Originally Bomis planned to make Wikipedia a profitable business 33 Sanger initially saw Wikipedia primarily as a tool to aid Nupedia development Wales feared that at worst it might produce complete rubbish 19 To the surprise of Sanger and Wales within a few days of launching the number of articles on Wikipedia had outgrown that of Nupedia and a small collective of editors had formed 18 20 It was Jimmy Wales along with other people who came up with the broader idea of an open source collaborative encyclopedia that would accept contributions from ordinary people 34 Initially neither Sanger nor Wales knew what to expect from the Wikipedia initiative 19 20 Many of the early contributors to the site were familiar with the model of the free culture movement and like Wales many of them sympathized with the open source movement 29 Wales has said that he was initially so worried about the concept of open editing where anyone can edit the encyclopedia that he would awaken during the night and monitor what was being added 35 36 Nonetheless the cadre of early editors helped create a robust self regulating community that has proven conducive to the growth of the project 9 In a talk at SXSW in 2016 he recalled that he wrote the first words on Wikipedia Hello world a phrase computer programmers often use to test new software 37 Sanger developed Wikipedia in its early phase and guided the project 30 38 The broader idea he originally ascribes to other people remarking in a 2005 memoir for Slashdot that the idea of an open source collaborative encyclopedia open to contribution by ordinary people was entirely Jimmy s not mine and the funding was entirely by Bomis Of course other people had had the idea adding the actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on 39 Sanger worked on and promoted both the Nupedia and Wikipedia projects until Bomis discontinued funding for his position in February 2002 40 Sanger resigned as editor in chief of Nupedia and as chief organizer of Wikipedia on March 1 of that year 41 42 Early on Bomis supplied the financial backing for Wikipedia 38 43 and entertained the notion of placing advertisements on Wikipedia before costs were reduced with Sanger s departure and plans for a non profit foundation were advanced instead 33 Controversy regarding Wales s status as co founder Further information History of Wikipedia Early roles of Wales and Sanger Wales with journalist Irina Slutsky at SXSW 2006 taken from her program Geek Entertainment TV 44 Wales has said that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia 45 and has publicly disputed Sanger s designation as a co founder Sanger and Wales were identified as co founders at least as early as September 2001 by The New York Times and as founders in Wikipedia s first press release in January 2002 46 47 In August of that year Wales identified himself as co founder of Wikipedia 48 Sanger assembled on his personal webpage an assortment of links that appear to confirm the status of Sanger and Wales as co founders 30 49 For example Sanger and Wales are historically cited or described in early news citations and press releases as co founders 30 Wales was quoted by The Boston Globe as calling Sanger s statement preposterous in February 2006 50 and called the whole debate silly in an April 2009 interview 51 In 2013 Wales told The New York Times that the dispute is the dumbest controversy in the history of the world 52 In late 2005 Wales edited his own biographical entry on the English Wikipedia Writer Rogers Cadenhead drew attention to logs showing that in his edits to the page Wales had removed references to Sanger as the co founder of Wikipedia 53 54 Sanger commented that having seen edits like this it does seem that Jimmy is attempting to rewrite history But this is a futile process because in our brave new world of transparent activity and maximum communication the truth will out 23 55 Wales was also observed to have modified references to Bomis in a way that was characterized as downplaying the sexual nature of some of his former company s products 19 23 Though Wales argued that his modifications were solely intended to improve the accuracy of the content 23 he apologized for editing his own biography a practice generally discouraged on Wikipedia 23 55 Role In a 2004 interview with Slashdot Wales outlined his vision for Wikipedia Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge That s what we re doing 56 Although his formal designation is board member and chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation Wales s social capital within the Wikipedia community has accorded him a status that has been characterized as benevolent dictator constitutional monarch and spiritual leader 57 58 59 In two interviews with The Guardian in 2014 Wales elaborated on his role on Wikipedia In the first interview he said that while he has always rejected the term benevolent dictator he does refer to himself as the constitutional monarch In the second he elaborated on his constitutional monarch designation saying that like Queen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II he has no real power 1 60 He was also the closest the project had to a spokesperson in its early years 10 The growth and prominence of Wikipedia made Wales an Internet celebrity 61 Although he had never traveled outside North America prior to the site s founding his participation in the Wikipedia project has seen him flying internationally on a near constant basis as its public face 10 62 When Larry Sanger left Wikipedia Wales s approach was different from Sanger s 63 Wales was fairly hands off 63 Despite involvement in other projects Wales has denied intending to reduce his role within Wikipedia telling The New York Times in 2008 that Dialing down is not an option for me Not to be too dramatic about it but to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language that s who I am That s what I am doing That s my life goal 58 In May 2010 the BBC reported that Wales had relinquished many of his technical privileges on Wikimedia Commons a Wikipedia sister project that hosts much of its multimedia content after criticism by the project s volunteer community over what they saw as Wales s hasty and undemocratic approach to deleting sexually explicit images he believed appeal solely to prurient interests 64 Wikimedia Foundation Wales appearing as a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees at Wikimania 2007 In mid 2003 Wales set up the Wikimedia Foundation WMF a non profit organization founded in St Petersburg Florida and later headquartered in San Francisco California 65 66 All intellectual property rights and domain names pertaining to Wikipedia were moved to the new foundation 67 whose purpose is to support the encyclopedia and its sister projects 20 Wales has been a member of the Wikimedia Foundation s Board of Trustees since it was formed and was its official chairman from 2003 through 2006 68 Since 2006 he has been accorded the honorary title of chairman emeritus and holds the board appointed community founder s seat that was installed in 2008 69 70 71 His work for the foundation including his appearances to promote it at computer and educational conferences has always been unpaid 22 Wales has often joked that donating Wikipedia to the foundation was both the dumbest and the smartest thing he had done On one hand he estimated that Wikipedia was worth US 3 billion on the other he weighed his belief that the donation made its success possible 26 67 72 73 In 2020 Wales said that I view my role as being very much like the modern monarch of the UK no real power but the right to be consulted the right to encourage and the right to warn 74 Wales gives an annual State of the Wiki address at the Wikimania conference 75 Wales s association with the foundation has led to controversy In March 2008 Wales was accused by former Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool of misusing the foundation s funds for recreational purposes 76 Wool also stated that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits a statement Wales denied 76 Then chairperson of the foundation Florence Devouard and former foundation interim Executive Director Brad Patrick denied any wrongdoing by Wales or the foundation saying that Wales accounted for every expense and that for items for which he lacked receipts he paid out of his own pocket in private Devouard upbraided Wales for constantly trying to rewrite the past 77 Later in March 2008 former Novell computer scientist Jeff Merkey said that Wales had edited Merkey s Wikipedia entry to make it more favorable in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation an allegation Wales dismissed as nonsense 78 79 In early 2016 Wikipedia editors perceived the WMF s Knowledge Engine project as a conflict of interest for Wales whose business Wikia might benefit from having the WMF spend a lot of money on research in respect to search 80 Wikia attempted to develop a search engine but it was closed in 2009 80 Wikia and later pursuits In 2004 Wales and then fellow member of the WMF Board of Trustees Angela Beesley founded the for profit company Wikia 18 Wikia is a wiki farm a collection of individual wikis on different subjects all hosted on the same website It hosts some of the largest wikis outside Wikipedia including Memory Alpha devoted to Star Trek and Wookieepedia Star Wars 81 Another service offered by Wikia was Wikia Search an open source search engine intended to challenge Google and introduce transparency and public dialogue about how it is created into the search engine s operations 82 but the project was abandoned in March 2009 83 Wales stepped down as Wikia CEO to be replaced by angel investor Gil Penchina a former vice president and general manager at eBay on June 5 2006 84 Penchina declared Wikia to have reached profitability in September 2009 85 In addition to his role at Wikia Wales is a public speaker represented by the Harry Walker Agency 86 87 He has also participated in a celebrity endorsement campaign for the Swiss watchmaker Maurice Lacroix 88 On November 4 2011 Wales delivered an hour long address at The Sage Gateshead in the United Kingdom to launch the 2011 Free Thinking Festival on BBC Radio Three 89 His speech which was entitled The Future of the Internet was largely devoted to Wikipedia Twenty days later on November 24 Wales appeared on the British topical debate television program Question Time 90 In May 2012 it was reported that Wales was advising the UK government on how to make taxpayer funded academic research available on the internet at no cost 91 His role reportedly involved working as an unpaid advisor on crowdsourcing and opening up policymaking and advising the Department of Business Innovation and Skills and the UK research councils on distributing research 91 In January 2014 it was announced that Wales had joined The People s Operator as co chair of the mobile phone network 92 On March 21 2014 Wales spoke on a panel at a Clinton Global Initiative University conference held at Arizona State University along with John McCain Saudi Arabian women s rights activist Manal al Sharif and Harvard University student Shree Bose 93 The topic of discussion was the age of participation and the ability of an increasingly large number of citizens to express their own opinions pursue their own educations and launch their own enterprises Wales exhorted young people to use social media to try to bring about societal change and compared government suppression of the Internet to a human rights violation 94 On May 26 2014 Google appointed Wales to serve on a seven member committee on privacy in response to Google v Gonzalez which led to Google s being inundated with requests to remove websites from their search results Wales said he wanted the committee to be viewed as a blue ribbon panel by lawmakers and for the committee to advise the lawmakers as well as Google 95 In 2017 Wales announced that he was launching an online publication called WikiTribune with a goal to fight fake news through a combination of professional journalists and volunteer contributors Wales described it as news by the people and for the people and that it will be the first time that professional journalists and citizen journalists will work side by side as equals writing stories as they happen editing them live as they develop and at all times backed by a community checking and rechecking all facts 96 In October 2019 Wales launched an ad free social network WT Social 97 98 The Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression is a UK based charity established by Wales to fight against human rights violations in the field of freedom of expression 99 100 101 Wales founded the charity after receiving a prize from the leader of Dubai which he felt he could not accept given the strict censorship laws there but claims he was not allowed to give back 100 As of 2016 the charity s CEO is Orit Kopel 102 Political and economic viewsPersonal philosophy Wales at a Creative Commons board meeting in June 2008 Wales has previously referred to himself as an Objectivist 82 referring to the philosophy of writer Ayn Rand in the mid 20th century that emphasizes reason individualism and capitalism Wales first encountered the philosophy through reading Rand s novel The Fountainhead during his undergraduate period 12 and in 1992 founded an electronic mailing list devoted to Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy 10 103 Though he has stated that the philosophy colours everything I do and think 10 he has said I think I do a better job than a lot of people who self identify as Objectivists of not pushing my point of view on other people 104 Jimmy Wales 2014 on CeBIT Global Conferences Wikipedia Zero When asked by Brian Lamb about Rand s influence on him in his appearance on C SPAN s Q amp A in September 2005 Wales cited integrity and the virtue of independence as personally important When asked if he could trace the Ayn Rand connection to a personal political philosophy at the time of the interview Wales labeled himself a libertarian qualifying his remark by referring to the Libertarian Party as lunatics and citing freedom liberty basically individual rights that idea of dealing with other people in a manner that is not initiating force against them as his guiding principles 12 An interview with Wales served as the cover feature of the June 2007 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason 9 In that profile he described his political views as center right 9 In a 2011 interview with The Independent he expressed sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London protesters saying You don t have to be a socialist to say it s not right to take money from everybody and give it to a few rich people That s not free enterprise 105 Dan Hodges in The Telegraph has described Wales as a Labour sympathizer 106 In 2015 he offered to help Ed Miliband with the Labour Party s social media strategy but Miliband turned him down 106 In 2015 Wales signed up as the committee chair for Democrat Lawrence Lessig s 2016 presidential campaign 107 In 2016 Wales and eleven other business leaders signed on to an open letter to American voters urging them not to vote for Donald Trump in that year s presidential election 108 In May 2017 Wales said on Quora that he is a centrist and a gradualist and believes that slow step by step change is better and more sustainable and allows us to test new things with a minimum of difficult disruption in society 109 In May 2022 Wales said that he did not identify with any particular political label 110 Philosophy in practice The January February 2006 issue of Maximum PC reported that Wales refused to comply with a request from the People s Republic of China to censor politically sensitive Wikipedia articles other corporate Internet companies such as Google Yahoo and Microsoft had already yielded to Chinese government pressure Wales stated that he would rather see companies such as Google adhere to Wikipedia s policy of freedom of information 111 In 2010 Wales criticized whistle blower website WikiLeaks and its editor in chief Julian Assange saying that their publication of Afghan war documents could be enough to get someone killed furthermore he expressed irritation at their use of the name wiki 112 What they re doing is not really a wiki The essence of wiki is a collaborative editing process 113 Development and management of Wikipedia Wales at the tenth anniversary celebration of the Bengali Wikipedia Wales cites Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek s essay The Use of Knowledge in Society which he read as an undergraduate 19 as central to his thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project 9 Hayek argued that information is decentralized that each individual only knows a small fraction of what is known collectively and that as a result decisions are best made by those with local knowledge rather than by a central authority 9 Wales reconsidered Hayek s essay in the 1990s while reading about the open source movement which advocated for the collective development and free distribution of software He was particularly moved by The Cathedral and the Bazaar an essay which was later adapted into a book of the same name by one of the founders of the movement Eric S Raymond as it opened his eyes to the possibilities of mass collaboration 19 From his background in finance and working as a futures and options trader Wales developed an interest in game theory and the effect of incentives on human collaborative activity He identifies this fascination as a significant basis for his developmental work on the Wikipedia project 114 He has rejected the notion that his role in promoting Wikipedia is altruistic which he defines as sacrificing your own values for others and he states that the idea that participating in a benevolent effort to share information is somehow destroying your own values makes no sense to me 62 Testimony before Senate Homeland Security Committee On December 11 2007 Wales testified before to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 115 116 He also submitted written testimony to the Senate Committee entitled E Government 2 0 Improving Innovation Collaboration and Access 117 Senator Joseph Lieberman introduced Wales by stating We are very glad to have as a witness Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia one of the most thrilling examples of what collaborative technology can produce We have asked Mr Wales to take us through some of the ideas behind Wikipedia and then to relate them to our jurisdiction which is to say to help us understand how similar technologies and collaborative activities can be applied to government for greater information sharing and communication both within the government but also between the government and the public In fact quite encouragingly the intelligence community has already developed and is using a process collaborative technology that they call Intellipedia which is based directly on the Wikipedia model So Mr Wales if imitation is a form of flattery you should feel flattered And the aim of this is to foster collaboration and information across the intelligence community obviously on a closed site 118 European Court of Justice Google ruling On May 14 2014 Wales strongly reacted to the European Court of Justice ECJ s ruling on the right of individuals to request the removal of information from Google s search results He stated to the BBC that the ruling was one of the most wide sweeping internet censorship rulings that I ve ever seen 119 In early June 2014 the TechCrunch media outlet interviewed Wales on the subject as he had been invited by Google to join an advisory committee that the corporation had formed as an addition to the formal process that the ECJ requested from Google to manage such requests 120 The May 2014 ECJ ruling required swift action from Google to implement a process that allowed people to directly contact the corporation about the removal of information that they believe is outdated or irrelevant Google s Larry Page revealed that 30 percent of requests received by Google since the ruling was made were categorized as other Wales explained in email responses that he was contacted by Google on May 28 2014 and The remit of the committee is to hold public hearings and issue recommendations not just to Google but to legislators and the public 120 When asked about his view on the ECJ s right to be forgotten ruling Wales replied I think the decision will have no impact on people s right to privacy because I don t regard truthful information in court records published by court order in a newspaper to be private information If anything the decision is likely to simply muddle the interesting philosophical questions and make it more difficult to make real progress on privacy issues In the case of truthful non defamatory information obtained legally I think there is no possibility of any defensible right to censor what other people are saying It is important to avoid language like data because we aren t talking about data we are talking about the suppression of knowledge 120 Wales then provided further explanation drawing a comparison with Wikipedia You do not have a right to use the law to prevent Wikipedia editors from writing truthful information nor do you have a right to use the law to prevent Google from publishing truthful information Wales concluded with an indication of his ideal outcome A part of the outcome should be the very strong implementation of a right to free speech in Europe essentially the language of the First Amendment in the U S 120 Other issues Wales at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos In 2012 the Home Secretary of the U K was petitioned by Wales in regard to his opposition to the extradition of Richard O Dwyer to the US 121 After an agreement was reached to avoid the extradition Wales commented This is very exciting news and I m pleased to hear it What needs to happen next is a serious reconsideration of the UK extradition treaty that would allow this sort of nonsense in the first place 122 In August 2013 Wales criticized U K Prime Minister David Cameron s plan for an Internet porn filter saying that the idea was ridiculous 123 In November 2013 Wales also commented on the Snowden affair describing Edward Snowden as a hero whom history would judge very favourably additionally Wales said the US public would have never approved the sweeping surveillance program publicized by Snowden had they been informed or asked about it 124 During the Gamergate controversy in 2014 in response to an email from a computer science student Wales allegedly said of the Gamergate movement that It is very difficult for me to buy into the notion that gamergate is really about ethics in journalism when every single experience I have personally had with it involved pro gg people insulting threatening doxxing etc and that the movement has been permanently tarnished and highjacked by a handful of people who are not what you would hope 125 Wales defended his comments in response to backlash from supporters of Gamergate saying that it isn t about what I believe Gg is famous for harassment Stop and think about why 126 In November 2019 Wales accused Twitter of giving preferential treatment to high profile figures such as Trump and Elon Musk for not banning or blocking them for their controversial statements 127 In May 2020 Wales criticized Trump for threatening to regulate social media companies 128 In September 2021 Wales said that Facebook and Twitter should combat misinformation and abuse on their platforms by deploying volunteer moderators to monitor controversial posts 129 In October 2021 Wales said that Protecting strong encryption is essential for protecting the human rights of millions of people around the world 130 In May 2022 in response to Elon Musk s proposed acquisition of Twitter Wales said that I think he s got some good and bad ideas based on his public statements adding that On the other hand Twitter in five years time could be much better than it is today or Twitter could be dead in five years time depending on the decisions he makes 131 During the COVID 19 pandemic Wales stated on Wikipedia that the consensus in the mainstream media surrounding the lab leak theory seemed to have shifted from this is highly unlikely and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative to this is one of the plausible hypotheses 132 Wales has visited Israel over ten times He has said that he is a strong supporter of Israel In 2015 he was awarded one of the Dan David Prizes an international award of 1 million given yearly at Tel Aviv University 10 percent of the prize goes to doctoral students Wales was chosen for spearheading what the prize committee called the information revolution 133 Personal life Wales with his second wife Christine Rohan Wales has been married three times At the age of 20 he married Pamela Green 134 a co worker at a grocery store in Alabama 62 They divorced in 1993 8 He met his second wife Christine Rohan through a friend in Chicago while she worked as a steel trader for Mitsubishi 12 17 They were married in Monroe County Florida in March 1997 135 and had a daughter before separating in 2008 134 12 62 Wales moved to San Diego in 1998 and after becoming disillusioned with the housing market there moved in 2002 to St Petersburg Florida 17 43 136 He had a brief relationship with Canadian conservative columnist Rachel Marsden in 2008 that began after Marsden contacted Wales about her Wikipedia biography 137 After accusations that Wales s relationship constituted a conflict of interest he stated that there had been a relationship but that it was over and that it had not influenced any matters on Wikipedia 138 139 a statement Marsden disputed 140 Wales married Kate Garvey at Wesley s Chapel in London on October 6 2012 141 Garvey is Tony Blair s former diary secretary the couple met in Davos Switzerland 142 143 Wales has three daughters one with Rohan and two with Garvey 1 144 Wales is an atheist In an interview with Big Think he said his personal philosophy is firmly rooted in reason and that he is a complete non believer 145 Wales has lived in London England since 2012 146 He became a British citizen in 2019 3 In 2021 on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast he revealed that he secretly moved to Argentina for one month after reading Ferriss s book The 4 Hour Workweek 147 Wales says that he is a passionate chef 74 PublicationsBrooks Robert Corson Jon Wales Jimmy Donal 1994 The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion Advances in Futures and Options Research 7 SSRN 5735 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea December 31 2008 Foreword In Fraser Matthew Dutta Soumitra eds Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life Work and World 1st ed Wiley ISBN 978 0 470 74014 9 OCLC 233939846 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea January 8 2009 Commentary Create a tech friendly U S government CNN Archived from the original on August 16 2011 Retrieved December 29 2009 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea February 10 2009 Foreword In Powell Juliette ed 33 Million People in the Room How to Create Influence and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking 1st ed Financial Times Press ISBN 978 0 13 715435 7 OCLC 244066502 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea March 3 2009 Foreword In Weber Larry ed Marketing to the Social Web How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business 2nd ed Wiley ISBN 978 0 470 41097 4 OCLC 244060887 Wales Jimmy March 17 2009 Foreword In Lih Andrew ed The Wikipedia Revolution How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World s Greatest Encyclopedia 1st ed Hyperion ISBN 978 1 4013 0371 6 OCLC 232977686 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea March 30 2009 Most Define User Generated Content Too Narrowly Advertising Age 80 Archived from the original on July 18 2012 Retrieved May 4 2009 Wales Jimmy Weckerle Andrea December 28 2009 Keep a Civil Cybertongue The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on May 19 2017 Retrieved August 8 2017 Mons B Ashburner M Chichester C Van Mulligen E Weeber M Den Dunnen J Van Ommen G J Musen M Cockerill M Hermjakob H Mons A Packer A Pacheco R Lewis S Berkeley A Melton W Barris N Wales J Meijssen G Moeller E Roes P Borner K Bairoch A 2008 Calling on a million minds for community annotation in WikiProteins Genome Biology 9 5 R89 doi 10 1186 gb 2008 9 5 r89 PMC 2441475 PMID 18507872 Distinctions Wales at the 2011 Gottlieb Duttweiler Awards Show Wales receives an honorary doctorate from Maastricht University 2015 Jimmy Wales accepting the Dan David Prize at the Tel Aviv University 2015 Wales is a former co chair of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008 148 and a former board member of Socialtext 149 He is a member of the Berkman Center for Internet amp Society at Harvard Law School 12 the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence 150 and the board of directors at Creative Commons 151 and Hunch com 152 In 2006 Wales was listed in the Scientists amp Thinkers section of the TIME 100 153 and number 12 in Forbes The Web Celebs 25 154 Wales has also given a lecture in the Stuart Regen Visionary series at New Museum which honors special individuals who have made major contributions to art and culture and are actively imagining a better future 155 and by the World Economic Forum as one of the Young Global Leaders of 2007 156 The 2008 Global Brand Icon of the Year Award 157 and on behalf of the Wikimedia project the Quadriga award of Werkstatt Deutschland for A Mission of Enlightenment 158 The 2009 Nokia Foundation annual award 159 the Business Process Award at the 7th Annual Innovation Awards and Summit by The Economist 160 In April 2011 Wales served on the jury of the Tribeca Film Festival 161 Wales has received a Pioneer Award 162 the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize and the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award 163 in 2011 164 165 the Monaco Media Prize 166 Wales has also received honorary degrees from Knox College 167 Amherst College 168 Stevenson University 168 169 Argentina s Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21 170 and Russia s MIREA University 171 On December 5 2013 Wales was awarded the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal in Copenhagen Denmark at a conference on An Open World to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Niels Bohr s atomic theory His presentation on Wikipedia Democracy and the Internet emphasised the need to expand Wikipedia into virtually all the languages of the world The Wikipedia Zero initiative was beginning to prove successful in encouraging telecommunications companies to provide children in the developing world with free access to Wikipedia for educational purposes 172 173 Wales was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013 174 In February 2014 Wales was named one of 25 Web Superstars by The Daily Telegraph 175 On May 17 2014 Wales was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Universita della Svizzera italiana USI Lugano Switzerland 176 On June 25 2014 Wales received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland 177 On July 10 2014 Wales received the UK Tech4Good Awards Special Award for establishing Wikipedia He was one of eight winners in various categories meant to honor organizations and individuals who use digital technology to improve the lives of others 178 179 In December 2014 Wales shared the inaugural 1 million Mohammed bin Rashid Knowledge Award with World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners Lee 180 In January 2015 Maastricht University awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa to Wales 181 On April 25 2015 Wales received the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service along with Jon Bon Jovi and Edward Norton 182 On May 17 2015 Wales received the Dan David Prize of 1 million in the Present category others won that amount for Past and Future contributions to society 183 He was awarded the prize for launching the world s largest online encyclopedia 184 In January 2016 Wales along with Baroness Rebuck became a non executive director of the Guardian Media Group 185 186 On February 2 2016 he received a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Universite Catholique de Louvain 187 188 In June 2016 during the opening ceremony on Wikimania 2016 Wales was awarded with honorary citizenship of Esino Lario 189 In September 2017 he was awarded the President s Medal of the British Academy for facilitating the spread of information via his work creating and developing Wikipedia the world s largest free online encyclopedia 190 See alsoList of Wikipedia peopleReferences a b c Garside Juliette August 3 2014 Jimmy Wales digital champion of free speech The Observer London Archived from the original on July 10 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Williams Christopher April 25 2017 Wikipedia co founder Jimmy Wales exits Guardian board over conflict of interest with Wikitribune news site The Telegraph ISSN 0307 1235 Archived from the original on January 11 2022 a b Jimmy Wales jimmy wales September 16 2019 I just became a UK citizen quite happy about that It occurs to me that perhaps a few MPs should actually take the Life in the UK test and study the manual Tweet via Twitter Jimmy Wales Encyclopaedia Britannica July 16 2014 Archived from the original on January 27 2015 Retrieved January 30 2015 Rogoway Mike July 27 2007 Wikipedia amp its founder disagree on his birth date Silicon Forest Archived from the original on May 22 2011 Retrieved October 31 2008 Kazek Kelly August 11 2006 Geek to chic Wikipedia founder a celebrity The News Courier Archived from the original on March 20 2008 Doris Wales s husband Jimmy wasn t sure what she was thinking when she bought a World Book Encyclopedia set from a traveling salesman in 1968 a b c d e Pink Daniel H March 13 2005 The Book Stops Here Wired Vol 13 no 3 Archived from the original on March 4 2005 Retrieved October 31 2008 a b c d e Wilson Claire M Jimmy Wales Encyclopedia of Alabama Archived from the original on December 20 2019 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b c d e f g h i j k l Mangu Ward Katherine June 2007 Wikipedia and beyond Jimmy Wales s sprawling vision Reason Vol 39 no 2 p 21 Archived from the original on July 25 2021 Retrieved August 13 2021 a b c d e f g h Brain scan The free knowledge fundamentalist The Economist June 5 2008 Archived from the original on June 9 2008 Retrieved December 26 2017 Walter Isaacson October 19 2014 You Can Look It Up The Wikipedia Story The Daily Beast Archived from the original on June 13 2019 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lamb Brian September 25 2005 Q amp A Jimmy Wales Wikipedia founder C SPAN Archived from the original on October 6 2014 Retrieved October 31 2006 Brown David December 11 2007 Jimmy Wales 83 Alumni Profiles Randolph School Archived from the original on April 18 2010 Retrieved October 31 2008 Moore Rebecca January 7 2013 Jimmy Wales 83 Information evangelist Archived October 31 2018 at the Wayback Machine Randolph School Retrieved August 12 2014 Profile Archived April 16 2015 at the Wayback Machine BBC Radio 4 March 18 2012 Retrieved August 12 2014 Todd Chambers answer to Pictures or it didn t happen what was jimmy wales high school life like Quora www quora com Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b c d e f Barnett Cynthia September 2005 Wiki Mania Florida Trend Vol 48 no 5 p 62 Archived from the original on October 17 2006 a b c McNichol Tom May 1 2007 Building a Wiki World Business 2 0 CNN Archived from the original on March 2 2007 Retrieved October 31 2007 a b c d e f g Schiff Stacy July 31 2006 Know It All The New Yorker Archived from the original on September 30 2014 Retrieved December 26 2017 b Even Wales has been caught airbrushing his Wikipedia entry eighteen times in the past year He is particularly sensitive about references to the porn traffic on his Web portal Adult content or glamour photography are the terms that he prefers though as one user pointed out on the site they are perhaps not the most precise way to describe lesbian strip poker threesomes In January Wales agreed to a compromise erotic photography a b c d e Poe 2006 p 93 Wales though was a businessman He wanted to build a free encyclopedia and Wikipedia offered a very rapid and economically efficient means to that end The articles flooded in many were good and they cost him almost nothing In 2003 Wales decided to diminish his own authority by transferring Wikipedia and all of its assets to the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation whose sole purpose is to set general policy for Wikipedia and its allied projects Wales s benign rule has allowed Wikipedia to do what it does best grow The numbers are staggering Poe 2006 p 88 In 1996 Wales and two partners founded a Web directory called Bomis Wales focused on the bottom up strategy using Web rings and it worked Bomis users built hundreds of rings on cars computers sports and especially babes e g the Anna Kournikova Web ring effectively creating an index of the laddie Web Instead of helping all users find all content Bomis found itself positioned as the Playboy of the Internet helping guys find guy stuff a b Brennen Jensen June 26 2006 Access for All The Chronicle of Philanthropy Vol 18 no 18 a b c d e Hansen Evan December 19 2005 Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio Wired News Archived from the original on May 30 2012 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Rosenzweig Roy June 2006 Can History Be Open Source Wikipedia and the Future of the Past The Journal of American History 93 1 117 146 doi 10 2307 4486062 JSTOR 4486062 Archived from the original reprint on April 25 2010 Retrieved April 22 2009 Gouthro Liane March 14 2000 Building the world s biggest encyclopedia PC World CNN Archived from the original on March 3 2006 Retrieved October 31 2008 a b Marks Paul February 3 2007 Interview with Jimmy Wales Knowledge to the people video New Scientist 193 2589 44 doi 10 1016 S0262 4079 07 60293 0 Archived from the original on December 21 2008 Retrieved October 31 2008 Jimmy Wales October 7 2009 The Future of Free Culture Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia SWF FLV FLASH Videotape New Haven Connecticut United States Yale University Event occurs at 43 19 Archived from the original on December 21 2021 Retrieved August 18 2011 a b c Poe 2006 p 91 The wiki technology quickly gained a devoted following within the software community And there it remained until January 2001 when Sanger had dinner with an old friend named Ben Kovitz Over tacos that night Sanger explained his concerns about Nupedia s lack of progress the root cause of which was its serial editorial system Kovitz brought up the wiki and sketched out wiki magic the mysterious process by which communities with common interests work to improve wiki pages by incremental contributions If it worked for the rambunctious hacker culture of programming Kovitz said it could work for any online collaborative project The wiki could break the Nupedia bottleneck by permitting volunteers to work simultaneously all over the project Wales and Sanger created the first Nupedia wiki on January 10 2001 The initial purpose was to get the public to add entries that would then be fed into the Nupedia process of authorization a b Sidener Jonathan December 6 2004 Everyone s encyclopedia U T San Diego p C1 Archived from the original on February 21 2009 Retrieved April 22 2009 a b c d Bergstein Brian March 25 2007 Sanger says he co started Wikipedia NBC News Associated Press Archived from the original on October 5 2013 Retrieved March 26 2007 The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger a philosophy PhD who counts himself as a co founder of Wikipedia the site he now hopes to usurp The claim does not seem particularly controversial Sanger has long been cited as a co founder Yet the other founder Jimmy Wales is not happy about it Wales Jimmy July 2005 Jimmy Wales The birth of Wikipedia TED conference Archived from the original on May 7 2019 Retrieved December 26 2017 Lecture Jimmy Wales Understanding failure as a route to success Maastricht University on YouTube January 2015 Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Finkelstein Seth September 25 2008 Wikipedia isn t about human potential whatever Wales says The Guardian London Archived from the original on December 26 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Sanger Larry November 1 2005 The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia A Memoir In DiBona Chris Cooper Danese Stone Mark eds Open Sources 2 0 The Continuing Evolution O Reilly Media Inc p 312 ISBN 978 0 596 00802 4 To be clear the idea of an open source collaborative encyclopedia open to contribution by ordinary people was entirely Jimmy s not mine and the funding was entirely by Bomis I was merely a grateful employee I thought I was very lucky to have a job like that land in my lap Of course other people had had the idea Getz Arlene February 1 2007 In Search of an Online Utopia Newsweek MSNBC Archived from the original on April 18 2007 Retrieved October 31 2008 Tapscott Don Anthony D 2008 Wikinomics Penguin Group p 71 ISBN 978 1 59184 231 6 OCLC 263665459 Carson Biz March 13 2016 The first words on Wikipedia were a nerdy programmer in joke Business Insider Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Singer Michael January 16 2002 Free Encyclopedia Project Celebrates Year One Jupitermedia Archived from the original on March 16 2003 Retrieved February 27 2008 Sanger Larry April 18 2005 The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia A Memoir Slashdot Archived from the original on May 24 2015 Retrieved December 26 2017 Sanger Larry January 18 2002 What Wikipedia is and why it matters meta wikimedia org Wikimedia Foundation Archived from the original on January 1 2021 Retrieved October 31 2008 Sanger Larry March 5 2007 My resignation Larry Sanger meta wikimedia org Wikimedia Foundation Archived from the original on February 26 2021 Retrieved December 26 2017 Terdiman Daniel January 6 2006 Wikipedia s co founder eyes a Digital Universe CNET News Archived from the original on July 9 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Smith Wes January 15 2007 He s the God King but you can call him Jimbo The Seattle Times Archived from the original on January 12 2012 Retrieved December 26 2017 Slutsky Irina Codel Eddie March 24 2006 SXSW2006 Jimmy Wales Uber Wikipedian Geek Entertainment TV Archived from the original on December 22 2012 Retrieved December 26 2017 Olson Parmy October 18 2006 A New Kid on the Wiki Block Forbes Archived from the original on December 6 2012 Retrieved March 28 2009 Meyers Peter September 20 2001 Fact Driven Collegial This Site Wants You The New York Times Archived from the original on April 15 2009 Retrieved August 8 2015 I can start an article that will consist of one paragraph and then a real expert will come along and add three paragraphs and clean up my one paragraph Larry Sanger Free Encyclopedia Project Wikipedia Creates 20 000 Articles in a Year Wikipedia 2002 Press release Wikipedia January 15 2002 Archived from the original on February 26 2021 Retrieved December 26 2017 Wales Jimmy August 6 2002 3apes open content web directory Yahoo Tech Groups forum post WebCite Archived from the original on April 8 2009 Retrieved April 3 2009 I m Jimmy Wales co founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia the open content encyclopedias Sanger Larry My role in Wikipedia links larrysanger org Archived from the original on March 12 2007 Retrieved December 26 2017 Mehegan David February 12 2006 Bias sabotage haunt Wikipedia s free world The Boston Globe p 4 Archived from the original on March 4 2016 Retrieved December 26 2017 Paoletto William April 2 2009 Interview with Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Big Oak Blog Archived from the original on February 24 2021 Retrieved December 26 2017 Spence Madeleine August 1 2021 Larry Sanger I wouldn t trust Wikipedia and I helped to invent it The Sunday Times ISSN 0140 0460 Archived from the original on August 1 2021 Retrieved August 1 2021 Cadenhead Rogers December 19 2005 Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1 cadenhead org Archived from the original on January 30 2021 Retrieved October 31 2008 Mitchell Dan December 24 2005 Insider Editing at Wikipedia The New York Times Archived from the original on May 29 2015 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Blakely Rhys December 20 2005 Wikipedia founder edits himself The Times London Archived from the original on April 2 2015 Retrieved October 31 2008 Miller Rob Roblimo July 28 2004 Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds Slashdot Archived from the original on November 8 2015 Retrieved December 26 2017 Cohen Noam Wikipedia The New York Times Archived from the original on November 24 2009 Retrieved January 19 2009 a b Cohen Noam March 17 2008 Open Source Troubles in Wiki World The New York Times Archived from the original on October 29 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Gleick James August 8 2008 Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace Meet in Egypt The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on November 6 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Cadwalladr Carole February 7 2014 Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales It s true I m not a billionaire So interview The Guardian London Archived from the original on May 18 2019 Retrieved December 26 2017 Arendse Ilse April 20 2007 MySpace will fail News24 Archived from the original on July 2 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b c d Lipsky Karasz Alisa September 2008 Mr Know It All W magazine Archived from the original on November 20 2008 Retrieved October 31 2008 a b Anderson Jennifer Joline 2011 Wikipedia The Company and Its Founders 1st ed Abdo Group p 76 ISBN 978 1 61714 812 5 Archived from the original on July 8 2014 Retrieved February 24 2016 Wikimedia pornography row deepens as Wales cedes rights BBC News British Broadcasting Corporation May 10 2010 Archived from the original on November 30 2010 Retrieved March 15 2010 Twist Jo November 5 2005 Open media to connect communities BBC News Archived from the original on August 28 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Cadelago Chris August 24 2008 Wikimedia pegs future on education not profit San Francisco Chronicle Archived from the original on March 6 2012 Retrieved May 19 2009 a b Neate Rupert November 7 2008 Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes bananas The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 Anthere Florence Devouard August 23 2004 Board of Trustees wikimediafoundation org Archived from the original on January 12 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Terdiman Daniel April 30 2008 Wikimedia Foundation restructures its board CNET News Retrieved May 19 2009 Bylaws Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation org August 5 2008 Archived from the original on February 25 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 F Community Founder Trustee Position The Board may appoint Jimmy Wales as Community Founder Trustee for a three year term The Board may reappoint Wales as Community Founder Trustee for successive three year terms without a term limit In the event that Wales is not appointed as Community Founder Trustee the position will remain vacant and the Board shall not fill the vacancy Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation org Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Since 2008 the Board has seats for ten Trustees one founder s seat reserved for Jimmy Wales two seats selected by the Wikimedia chapters and thematic organizations three seats nominated by the Wikimedia community and four seats appointed by the rest of the Board Welle Www Dw Com Deutsche June 28 2007 Wikipedia Founder Great Ideas Come From Different Places Deutsche Welle Archived from the original on June 25 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Pillay Terence April 29 2007 Wikipedia rules Independent Online Archived from the original on January 14 2013 Retrieved May 30 2010 a b Garfield Simon October 20 2020 What We Know And Can Agree On Wikipedia At 20 Esquire Archived from the original on October 20 2020 Retrieved February 16 2021 Toor Amar July 15 2012 Jimmy Wales Mary Gardiner address Wikipedia s gender gap at Wikimania conference The Verge Archived from the original on July 8 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Moses Asher March 5 2008 Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales accused of expenses rort The Sydney Morning Herald Archived from the original on October 18 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Kim Ryan March 5 2007 Allegations swirl around Wikipedia s Wales San Francisco Chronicle Archived from the original on November 22 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Moses Asher March 11 2008 More woes for Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales The Sydney Morning Herald Archived from the original on June 24 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Wiki boss edited for donation BBC News March 12 2008 Archived from the original on November 9 2020 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Mullin Joe February 29 2016 Wikimedia Foundation director resigns after uproar over Knowledge Engine Ars Technica Archived from the original on March 1 2016 Bjortomt Olav August 18 2007 The arts online The Times London Archived from the original on August 21 2008 Retrieved May 11 2009 a b Deutschman Alan March 2007 Why Is This Man Smiling Fast Company Archived from the original on July 26 2012 Retrieved December 26 2017 Wales revealed that Wikia his for profit Silicon Valley startup was working on Search Wikia which he touted as the search engine that changes everything Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about knowledge and the encyclopedia we have a chance now to revolutionize how we think about search Wales Jimmy March 31 2009 Update on Wikia doing more of what s working Archived April 23 2009 at the Wayback Machine blog jimmywales com Retrieved May 4 2009 Wikia taps eBay exec as CEO San Francisco Business Times June 5 2006 Archived from the original on November 8 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 LaVallee Andrew September 9 2009 Wikia Hits Profit Target Early Digits Archived from the original on November 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Jimmy Wales harrywalker com Archived from the original on March 5 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Jimmy Wales full biography PDF harrywalker com Archived from the original PDF on March 11 2011 Retrieved September 25 2009 Rebala Monika January 8 2011 Krol Encyklopedii Newsweek Polska in Polish Archived from the original on August 6 2011 Retrieved July 5 2011 Jimmy Wales launches 2011 Free Thinking Festival Archived November 24 2020 at the Wayback Machine on BBC Radio Three November 4 2011 This week s panel BBC Question Time November 23 2011 Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Jha Alok May 1 2012 Wikipedia founder to help in government s research scheme The Guardian London Archived from the original on January 14 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales backs viral mobile network The People s Operator The Daily Telegraph London January 20 2014 Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 CGI U 2014 Meeting Agenda Clinton Global Initiative March 21 2014 Archived from the original on March 23 2014 Retrieved March 23 2014 Mak Tim March 22 2014 Bill Clinton defends American control of Internet domain name system Washington Examiner Archived from the original on July 25 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Fleischer Lisa May 30 2014 Google Taps Wikipedia s Wales to Help Weigh Right to Be Forgotten The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on July 9 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Hern Alex April 25 2017 Wikipedia co founder launches Wikitribune to eradicate fake news The Guardian Archived from the original on May 20 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Wikipedia co founder Jimmy Wales launches Twitter and Facebook rival Financial Times Archived from the original on November 17 2019 Retrieved November 16 2019 Want an Ad Free Social Network Wikipedia s Co Founder Made One PCMag UK November 15 2019 Archived from the original on November 16 2019 Retrieved November 16 2019 Smith Charlie September 4 2015 Jimmy Wales on Censorship in China The Huffington Post Archived from the original on March 22 2019 Retrieved March 8 2017 a b Jimmy Wales wants Wikipedia to change the world again The Jerusalem Post Archived from the original on October 12 2019 Retrieved March 8 2017 Wikipedia founder joins worldwide chorus in support of Zunar Free Malaysia Today October 21 2016 Archived from the original on August 11 2017 Retrieved March 8 2017 Wales Jimmy Kopel Orit March 16 2016 Jimmy Wales The world needs to ask whereisBassel The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Archived from the original on September 18 2019 Retrieved August 11 2017 Runciman David May 28 2009 Like Boiling a Frog London Review of Books pp 14 16 Archived from the original on October 11 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Sirius R U July 29 2007 Jimmy Wales Will Destroy Google 10 Zen Monkeys Archived from the original on February 14 2021 Retrieved October 31 2008 Dugan Emily October 23 2011 Jimmy Wales The internet s shy evangelist The Independent London Archived from the original on June 9 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b Hodges Dan Why did Ed Miliband refuse the help of Jimmy Wales Archived September 29 2018 at the Wayback Machine The Telegraph London May 15 2015 Retrieved December 26 2017 Sharwood Simon August 17 2015 Jimbo Wikipedia Wales leads Lawrence Lessig s presidential push The Register Archived from the original on October 23 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Barr Greg October 7 2016 Why Joseph Kopser 11 other national business leaders oppose Donald Trump Austin Business Journal Archived from the original on May 6 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Where is Jimmy Wales on the political compass Quora www quora com Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved September 2 2018 Mangu Ward Katherine April 28 2022 Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales Has Already Solved the Internet s Problems Reason com Archived from the original on May 6 2022 Retrieved May 7 2022 Maximum PC 2006 holiday issue p 9 Future US Inc ISSN 1522 4279 Reynolds Lindor Wikipedia co founder slams Wikileaks Agence France Presse Archived from the original on October 1 2010 Retrieved September 28 2010 Burrell Ian December 20 2010 Jimmy Wales It s not about how many pages It s about how good they are The Independent London Archived from the original on June 9 2022 Retrieved April 13 2019 Cole Bruce March April 2007 Building a Community of Knowledge Humanities 28 2 6 14 Archived from the original on April 18 2010 Retrieved December 27 2009 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Archived from the original on December 26 2007 Retrieved January 28 2015 Committee Reports loc gov Archived from the original on January 14 2016 Retrieved January 28 2015 S Hrg 110 894 E Government 2 0 Improving Innovation Collaboration and Access Hearing Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate One Hundred Tenth Congress First Session Text version Archived June 2 2021 at the Wayback Machine pdf version Archived November 7 2014 at the Wayback Machine Introduction of Jimbo Wales by Senator Joseph Lieberman Chairman Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs U S Senate S Hrg 110 894 ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION DECEMBER 11 2007 PDF Archived PDF from the original on November 7 2014 Retrieved November 7 2014 Lee Dave May 14 2014 Google ruling astonishing says Wikipedia founder Wales BBC News Archived from the original on September 13 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 a b c d Lomas Natasha June 8 2014 Jimmy Wales Blasts Europe s Right To Be Forgotten Ruling As A Terrible Danger TechCrunch AOL Inc Archived from the original on June 12 2014 Retrieved June 9 2014 Ball James Wikipedia s founder calls for Richard O Dwyer extradition to be stopped The Guardian London Archived from the original on July 10 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Davies Lizzy Ball James Bowcott Owen November 28 2012 Wikipedia founder hails extradition deal with US and calls for law reform The Guardian London Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Gray Lila September 17 2013 Wikipedia Gives Porn a Break XBIZ Archived from the original on December 27 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Gabbatt Adam November 25 2013 Edward Snowden a hero for NSA disclosures Wikipedia founder says The Guardian London Archived from the original on March 29 2014 Retrieved December 26 2017 Van Winkle Dan December 19 2014 Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales Not Taking Gamergate s Crap The Mary Sue Archived from the original on March 3 2021 Retrieved February 16 2021 Nissim Mayer December 20 2014 Jimmy Wales replies to GamerGate criticism Digital Spy Archived from the original on July 10 2022 Retrieved July 10 2022 Randerson James November 26 2019 Jimmy Wales Twitter should ban Trump Politico Archived from the original on April 19 2021 Retrieved April 19 2021 Srikanth Chandra R May 28 2020 Donald Trump is a lunatic Wikipedia co founder Jimmy Wales The Economic Times Archived from the original on August 6 2021 Retrieved August 6 2021 Milmo Dan September 23 2021 Facebook and Twitter should use volunteer moderators says Wikipedia founder The Guardian Archived from the original on September 23 2021 Retrieved September 23 2021 Butcher Mike October 21 2021 Watch Edward Snowden launch Global Encryption Day live today TechCrunch Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved October 24 2021 Wood Tom May 17 2022 Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Says Twitter Could Be Dead In Five Years Under Elon Musk s Leadership LADbible Group Archived from the original on May 28 2022 Retrieved May 28 2022 Ryan Jackson June 24 2021 Inside Wikipedia s endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory CNET Archived from the original on June 27 2021 Retrieved June 27 2021 Sales Ben Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales likes Israel but stays neutral Times of Israel Archived from the original on November 21 2021 Retrieved November 21 2021 a b Chozick Amy June 30 2013 Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire The New York Times Magazine Archived from the original on June 30 2013 Retrieved October 31 2018 Meyer Susan 2013 Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia Rosen Publishing p 27 ISBN 978 1 4488 6912 1 Lewine Edward November 18 2007 The Encyclopedist s Lair The New York Times Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 C Greatest misconception about Wikipedia We aren t democratic Our readers edit the entries but we re actually quite snobby The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn t be writing Canadian pundit Wikipedia founder in messy breakup Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Press March 2 2008 Archived from the original on March 4 2008 Retrieved December 26 2017 Moses Asher March 4 2008 Ex takes her revenge on Mr Wikipedia The Sydney Morning Herald Archived from the original on July 2 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Bergstein Brian March 5 2008 Wikipedia s Wales defends breakup expenses USA Today Archived from the original on April 23 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Agrell Siri March 4 2008 Ms Marsden s cyberspace breakup tit for tat for T shirt The Globe and Mail Archived from the original on August 2 2020 Retrieved December 26 2017 Donnelly Laura October 6 2012 Wiki wedding Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales marries Tony Blair s former aide The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 Edemariam Aida February 19 2011 The Saturday interview Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales The Guardian London Archived from the original on December 16 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Smallman Danny January 18 2012 Jimmy Wales Mr Wikipedia on today s blackout London Evening Standard Archived from the original on January 20 2012 Retrieved January 19 2012 Jaffe Pearce Michele March 12 2017 A life in the day Jimmy Wales The Sunday Times ISSN 0956 1382 Archived from the original on June 12 2018 Retrieved June 8 2018 He lives in west London with his third wife Kate Garvey a former aide to Tony Blair and daughters Ada 5 and Jemima 3 Kira 16 his daughter with his second wife lives in Florida Jimmy Wales Big Think Big Think Media August 10 2007 Archived from the original on November 11 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 I m a complete non believer Hough Stephen March 11 2012 Jimmy Wales Wikipedia chief to advise Whitehall on policy The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 Jones Stephen September 6 2021 Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he secretly lived in Argentina for a month after reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss Business Insider Archived from the original on September 16 2021 Retrieved September 16 2021 World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008 World Economic Forum May 18 20 2008 Archived from the original on April 30 2009 Retrieved May 12 2009 Jimmy Wales Joins Socialtext Board of Directors Wikipedia Founder to Advise Leader in Enterprise Wiki Solutions Press release SocialText October 3 2005 Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 People Advisory board MIT Center for Collective Intelligence Archived from the original on July 21 2015 Retrieved August 8 2015 Garlick Mia March 30 2006 Creative Commons Adds Two New Board Members Creative Commons Archived from the original on December 22 2008 Retrieved October 31 2008 Wales Jimmy December 7 2009 What s new for me Hunch blog jimmywales com Archived from the original on December 8 2009 Retrieved December 26 2017 Anderson Chris April 30 2006 Jimmy Wales The Proud Amateur Who Created Wikipedia Time Archived from the original on December 25 2018 Retrieved December 26 2017 Ewalt David M January 23 2007 The Web Celeb 25 Forbes Archived from the original on June 29 2011 Retrieved October 31 2008 Stuart Regen Visionaries Series Jimmy Wales New Museum Archived from the original on December 22 2010 Retrieved April 6 2011 Wikipedia founder James Wales at New Museum as 2010 Stuart Regen Visionary Flash Art Archived from the original on July 11 2011 Retrieved April 6 2011 Speakers Jimmy Wales iCommonsSummit org 2008 Archived from the original on May 20 2008 Retrieved October 31 2008 Corum announces Jimmy Wales as The Global Brand Icon of the Year Award MattBaily ca September 14 2008 Archived from the original on December 24 2008 Retrieved October 31 2008 Woodall James Peter Gabriel Rocker Human Rights Advocate Intelligent Life The Economist Group Archived from the original on October 10 2009 Retrieved October 20 2009 Nokia Foundation awards the founder of Wikipedia Nokia com November 4 2009 Archived from the original on November 21 2009 Retrieved November 5 2009 The Economist Innovation Awards and Summit The Economist October 30 2008 Archived from the original on November 8 2008 Retrieved November 8 2008 Rutkoff Aaron April 18 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Names Actors Directors to Its Jury The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on May 19 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 EFF Honors Craigslist Gigi Sohn and Jimmy Wales with Pioneer Awards Kansas City infoZine News April 28 2006 Archived from the original on May 18 2019 Retrieved December 26 2017 Dare to Share From Individual to Collective Knowledge in German Leonardo award eu September 21 2011 Archived from the original on December 14 2013 Retrieved July 3 2014 GD Prize 2011 Gdi ch Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Isobel Leybold Johnson Knowledge is our most important resource Archived July 17 2017 at the Wayback Machine Swissinfo January 27 2011 Retrieved December 26 2017 Barnett Emma November 17 2009 Jimmy Wales interview Wikipedia is focusing on accuracy The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 Knox College Honorary Degrees Knox College Archived from the original on September 2 2006 Retrieved October 31 2008 a b Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Poet Mary Jo Salter Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse Among Eight to Be Honored at Amherst Commencement Archived July 15 2014 at the Wayback Machine amherst edu April 20 2010 Retrieved May 23 2010 Wikipedia Co Founder Jimmy Wales Receives Honorary Degree from Stevenson University Stevenson University May 25 2010 Archived from the original on July 5 2013 Retrieved December 26 2017 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia distinguished by UES 21 Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21 December 16 2009 Archived from the original on May 31 2011 Retrieved May 10 2011 MIREA June 16 2011 Moscow State Technical University Website Archived from the original on February 26 2021 Retrieved June 22 2011 Rector prof RAN AS Whitefish J Wales handed a diploma and the mantle of Honorary Doctor Bauman MIREA An Open World University of Copenhagen Archived from the original on December 3 2013 Retrieved December 26 2017 Niels Bohr Conference Free exchange of information can avert technological threats University of Copenhagen October 24 2013 Archived from the original on October 18 2020 Retrieved December 26 2017 Ngak Chenda June 26 2013 Aaron Swartz among inductees to Internet Hall of Fame CBS News Archived from the original on August 22 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Curtis Sophie February 28 2014 25 years of the World Wide Web 25 Web superstars The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 11 2022 Retrieved December 26 2017 Cantoni Lorenzo May 17 2014 Jimmy Wales doctor honoris causa in Communication Sciences ELearning ETourism blog of Lorenzo Cantoni dean of the Faculty Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Scotland Tonight Wikipedia founder honoured in Glasgow STV News June 25 2014 Archived from the original on July 13 2014 Retrieved December 26 2017 Smolaks Max July 11 2014 Tech4Good Awards Celebrate Digital Inclusion Tech Week Europe Archived from the original on October 22 2020 Retrieved December 26 2017 Tech4Good Awards 2014 Winners Tech4Good Awards July 10 2014 Archived from the original on September 18 2020 Retrieved December 26 2017 Shabandri Muaz December 8 2014 Web inventor Wiki co founder share 1m Knowledge Award khaleejtimes com Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Maastricht University awards honorary doctorates to Frans Timmermans and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales Maastricht University Archived from the original on December 24 2014 Retrieved November 23 2014 Photos from the 36th Annual Common Wealth Awards bonjovi com March 20 2015 Archived from the original on December 26 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Dan David Foundation to award three prizes of 1 million to six world renowned laureates Jerusalem Post February 11 2015 Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Elis Niv February 10 2015 Wikipedia co founder genome project leader among recipients of Dan David Prize Jerusalem Post Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Ponsford Dominic January 27 2016 Wikipedia s Jimmy Wales and Gail Rebuck join Guardian Media Group board Press Gazette Archived from the original on May 1 2016 Retrieved December 26 2017 Sweney Mark January 27 2016 Baroness Rebuck and Jimmy Wales join Guardian Media Group board The Guardian Archived from the original on November 22 2021 Retrieved April 3 2022 Belga February 2 2016 Eduardo Suplicy Paola Vigano et Jimmy Wales faits Docteurs honoris causa de l UCL L Avenir Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Schmitz Bruno February 2 2016 UCL Trois penseurs utopistes pour regler les problemes belges RTBF Archived from the original on July 1 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Esino Lario cittadinanza onoraria al papa di Wikipedia Esino Lario honorary citizenship to the father of Wikipedia Il Giorno in Italian Milan June 24 2016 From Wikipedia to Roman coins British Academy recognises excellence in the humanities and social sciences The British Academy September 27 2017 Retrieved December 26 2017 Cite error A list defined reference named WMF PR 2004 04 25 is not used in the content see the help page BibliographyPoe Marshall September 2006 The Hive The Atlantic Monthly 298 2 86 94 Archived from the original on July 4 2008 Retrieved February 29 2008 Further reading Wikimania Meet the Wikipedians Those persnickety techy types who keep your favorite Internet information website brimming with data 60 Minutes Morley Safer interviewing Jimmy Wales First aired on April 5 2015 Rebroadcast on July 26 2015 Wales Jimmy July 2005 The birth of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales recalls how he assembled a ragtag band of volunteers gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia the self organizing self correcting never finished online encyclopedia TED talks On Being w Krista Tippett Jimmy Wales The Sum of All Human Knowledge broadcast WAMU American University September 11 2016 Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales is Taking on Facebook and the Dangers Lurking in the Rise of Artificial Intelligence by Fred Guterl Newsweek December 12 2019 External linksJimmy Wales at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata Discussions from Meta Wiki Official website Jimmy Wales at IMDb Jimmy Wales on Charlie Rose Appearances on C SPAN Jimmy Wales at TED Roberts Russ March 9 2009 Wales on Wikipedia EconTalk Library of Economics and Liberty Wikipedia Role of Jimmy Wales Wales s role in the English Wikipedia as described by its editors You can look it up The Wikipedia story excerpt from the 2014 book The Innovators Wikipedia userpage Wikia userpage Wales Jimmy December 9 2016 How Wikipedia Works cato org Cato Institute Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia discusses the site how it s treated by governments and how it s fueled by its users Portals Biography Business Free and open source software Freedom of speech Internet United Kingdom United States Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Jimmy Wales amp oldid 1131103650, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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